


Echoes of Who You Were

by waypoint



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post 5x09, shaw gets an undercut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 17:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10223450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waypoint/pseuds/waypoint
Summary: After escaping from Samaritan, Shaw struggles to recognize the person in her reflection.





	

**Author's Note:**

> While I was _supposed_ to be finishing up To Boldly Go (it's almost there, I promise!), I started jotting down ideas for this short piece. One thing led to another and here we are. 
> 
> Since before season 4 aired, Sarah has been saying that she wanted Shaw to shave her head. Not only would it have been perfect, given what Samaritan was doing to her, but she would have looked amazing. *sigh*
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 

 

Sameen stares are her own reflection. She doesn't even recognize the person looking back. She's been defeated; _she's_ broken.

 

She cannot stand the sight of her. On the outside, she looks like the ghost of Sameen Shaw. The protector, the unwavering solider, the one who completed the mission.

 

Shaw blinks, suddenly the room around her has changed. She's back with Samaritan. White walls surround her, thick, and suffocating. Even the chemical disinfectant smell somehow permeates through. She blinks again and she's back in the safe-house. The light above the vanity casts a warm glow. The colors are dark, but comforting. She grips the sink, thinking that the cool porcelain would help to calm her nerves.

 

It doesn't.

 

She shakes her head, trying to get rid of the demons that were haunting her, when she catches her eye in the mirror.

 

Is this an illusion still? Had she truly escaped?

 

She feels an urge to touch behind her ear, too strong to resist. Shaw runs her fingers along the skin, but find no evidence of an incision. Unsure still, and unable to control the anger bubbling beneath the surface, she scratches the spot over and over until her fingernails are red with her own blood.

 

Shaw lashes out with her right fist, smashing the mirror. Shards fall around her, into the sink, onto the vanity, scattering the floor.  She picks up a large piece from the sink and squeezes. Red lines are racing across her palm and down her hand. They drip from her wrist as her old wound is re-opened.

 

She catches her reflection, this time she is disfigured because of the cracks in the glass. She thinks that this may in fact be her true self. She's disgusted.

 

How could she let this simulation get so far? To think that she had escaped. To allow herself a fleeting moment of security after agreeing to come back to this safe-house.

 

It was a mistake.  They were all in danger now. John, Harold, The Machine... Root.

 

She feels a sensation running over her whole body, like thousands of ants irritating hers kin.  She can't stand it.  She takes a fist full of her own hair until her elastic band snaps. She wrenches the shard of glass through it, feeling some of the strands rip. They don't break off entirely.  Shaw closes her fist tighter, feeling like she could rip the hair right out.

 

And she does.

 

Her hand comes away full of her own dark hair. Throwing it to the ground like it was some kind of disease.

 

It's not enough.

 

She sees her reflection again. Taunting her. _Mocking_ her weakness.  Opening what's left of the mirror, she reaches into the medicine cabinet and takes out the electric hair clippers.

 

They pulse in her hand when she presses the power button. Her fingertips are white from squeezing them so hard.  The cabinet closes and she's left with her distorted reflection again. The cracked glass skewing her image more than her own mind was.  Shaw drags the clippers across the left side of her head. Feeling hair falling down, fluttering past her bare shoulder.

 

A ragged breath escapes through clenched teeth.

 

The eyes in the mirror were colder than outer space. Dead, like Shaw will be at the end of this simulation.  She runs the razor through the right side of her head now. Swallowing hard, her throat is suddenly dry. Curious... had she been screaming?  She didn't know.

 

She didn't know anything anymore.

 

Shaw takes the clippers and runs them over the base of her skull. Behind her left ear. Where they had surgically implanted a chip in her skull. In every simulation.

 

Except this one.

 

Her hand trembles over the spot and slip upwards. The skin behind her ear is suddenly burning.  She can feel the warmth running down her neck. Seeing red in her shattered reflection.

 

She doesn't hear the door open.

 

“Sameen?”

 

Then, Root is there. Shaw can see her in what's left of the mirror. Her figure, normally radiant and pure, had been mutilated by the broken glass.

 

Root comes up behind her, but doesn't say anything further. She encourages Shaw's hand to open and release the shard of glass still clenched tightly. It was embedded in the skin, and, to Root's credit, she only winced slightly at the extraction

 

Suddenly, she's placing a towel in Shaw's hand. It's wet and warm.  Shaw's breathing becomes heavy. Being in these close quarters with Root was fraying her nerves. It felt like she was being electrocuted. She felt her shoulders begin to tremble.

 

How long, she wonders, before the simulation gets back on track.

 

_I never stopped looking for you._

 

_Maybe there's someway I can repay the favor?_

 

_You should get some rest._

 

She waits and waits, but the words never come.  It's different.  Samaritan must have changed their script.  But Shaw is smarter than they are.

 

She wonders if running the glass across her wrist would be as effective as a bullet in her brain.

 

Either way, it would cause the program to reset, she supposed. She wanted end this early, rather than torture herself with completing the motions. She's suffocating herself, but she going to let this play through.  Remarkable how she could be free, yet still trapped.

 

(She would never be free.)

 

Root must sense her inner turmoil, or see it in her eyes. She guides Shaw to sit on the edge of the tub. Root sits beside her and is pressing a warm cloth against her head. She wanted to lean into it, wrap herself in the comfort.

 

She wanted it to be real. (Was it?)

 

Root finishes wiping the blood away and discards the towel. She remained silent as her fingers began combing through the tangled mess of Shaw's hair.  What's left of it anyway.

 

“You should have told me you wanted a makeover, Sameen.”

 

Her voices pitches higher than Shaw remembers, and it causes her to grit her teeth. The simulations never got her voice right. It seemed they continued to fail. How typical of Root to try and add levity to this _husk_ that dared call herself Sameen Shaw.  She never missed an opportunity to say something sweet, flirty, or loving.  They were now getting that part right, at least.

 

( _Could_ this be real?)

 

Shaw's hand twitches for a gun she knows isn't there. For sharp glass that is just within reach.

 

Root offers to help her. She _wants_ to help.

 

She takes the clippers from Shaw, the vice like grip easing against her warm fingers. Hand on Shaw's shoulder, she gently encourages her movement. Root is sitting at her back. Close enough to feel the warmth, yet still so far out of reach.  Shaw turns, one foot in the tub, one outside.

 

One foot in reality, the other stuck in a simulation.

 

“Ready?” She asks.

 

Shaw doesn't speak. She can't.  So her head bobs forward slightly. Next, Root is pulling her hair back, twisting it around into an elastic until it finally sits atop her head. She's so gentle; one hand is keeping the hair from falling, and the other is turning the clippers back on again.  When they touch the back of Shaw's neck, she feels the reverberation bouncing around in her skull. It would be maddening, she thinks, but Root's presence is grounding her. Keeping her from spiraling.

 

Keeping her safe.

 

The razor glides up the back of her head. Stops. Then up the right side, one small row at a time. She finds herself starting to revel in the buzzing. Root uses the tips of her fingers to guide Shaw's head as she works. She misses their touch when she draws back, but they keep coming back.

 

Root then works the clippers on the left side in short lengths. They tickle Shaw's ear when she brings them too close and Shaw shudders away. Root's hand is on her shoulder immediately. Soft, yet strong.  It holds her back on the edge of the void. Helps fight against the memories of being violated in the hands of the enemy.

 

“It's all right,” she says.

 

Maybe she's telling the truth.

 

Some time later, minutes maybe, Shaw isn't sure, Root is satisfied with her work. Telling her that it's a very modern look. Shaw can hear something in the other woman's voice: a tremor that she is trying to hide.

 

Root offers to stitch Shaw's hand as well, but she refused. In that moment, she feared the proximity would be too much. The tenderness she would no doubt use would be Shaw's undoing.

 

It worried her, Shaw could tell (she always could), but she settled for a quick cleaning and bandage.

 

“I'll clean this up,” she says. “Get some rest.”

 

_You should get some rest._

 

It's the same as in the simulations. Close. Too close.  But something is different. Shaw sees acceptance in the other woman's eyes, not sadness. Warmth, instead of lust.

 

Shaw nods and walks away.

 

Later, she's lying in bed, trying to calm her racing mind. It's so different than normal. (Since when did simulations become normal?)

 

Root not covering with with the leather jacket. Not coming on to her. No flashes of decay and destruction. No lapses in memory.

 

Was it different enough to be real?

 

Shaw can't recall when, but eventually she must have fallen asleep.

 

Waking with a start, she sits straight up and looks around. Expecting to be back within the white walls of the facility she was kept in.

 

But she's surrounded by colors; brown brick walls, burgundy curtains, wooden furniture, cool gray sheets.  It feels like years since she's seen sunlight, and yet there it was, streaming through the window.  She looks to her right and sees Root. She's sound asleep on a reclining chair next to the bed.

 

In the simulations, they would end up in bed together.  Always.  Yet in this version (reality?), Root chose to keep her distance and watch over Shaw.

 

She checks for the incision at the base of her skull. Cold fingers brush over a blemish on her skin and immediately alarm bells are sounding her mind.  Shaw throws the covers off her legs and swings them over the bed. In the panic, her hand drifts to caress the back of her head, feeling each short hair prickle against her fingertips.

 

It gives her pause. It feels like she's entered the vacuum of space. No sound, no air.

 

Then the last week comes back to her:

 

She remembers stealing the ax and escaping. Walking the desert for miles to reach New York City. Encountering Root in the park. Putting a gun to her head and watching in horror as she did the same. Breaking the glass the bathroom and shredding her own hair. Allowing Root to tend to her.

 

“Sameen?” A small voice comes from behind.

 

Shaw turns to face her, hand still trailing across her own head.  Samaritan got a lot of things right. At times, almost everything. But this was raw emotion that an AI simply couldn't replicate.

 

Shaw doesn't remember the simulation version of Root ever looking at her quite like that.

 

And she allows herself to think that this may be real after all.

 


End file.
